An ideal HDTV, regardless of price, provides a set of A/V connections that accommodates the current and future needs of its owner. And, of course, a decent HDTV also delivers well-contrasted imagery with colors that appear naturally saturated and accurate. The AOC Envision L32W461, a 32-inch LCD HDTV, comes close to this ideal and grabbed my attention with its bright picture, realistic color, and easy setup. After spending some quality eyeball time with the L32W461, though, I did have a few criticisms, such as the set's lone HDMI input and how it overly darkened the darkest picture detailsneither of which is easy to deal with.

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Setting up the L32W461 was a simple process that involved attaching its sturdy base stand using three thumb screwsno tools required. The L32W461's black bezel and frame are matte-finish to minimize reflections, and a perforated metallic-colored grille along the bottom edge of the display conceals a fixed set of stereo speakers (2 X 10W). The L32W461 measures 23.8 by 31.9 by 9.3 inches (HWD w/base attached) and tips the scales at a svelte 34.3 pounds. Without the stand attached, the TV's depth slims to just 4.6 inches. On-display controls were centered along the top edge of the screen for easy, "no look" access to the power button and other basic functions.

The main A/V connection on the L32W461 is located at the rear of the display, facing downward near the lower edge. The TV's HD-compatible video inputs include one HDMI connection, two component-video inputs, and a VGA input for PC use. A side-accessible input block provides composite and S-Video input with RCA-style stereo audio connections, as well as a mini-jack port for use with earphones. I feel that the L32W461 could really use a second or third HDMI input, but its relatively low price makes its limited selection of digital inputs a little easier to accept. The set's native resolution is 1,366 by 768 pixels progressively scanned (768p), and it produced crisp-looking imagery when fed the common PC resolution of 1,360-by-768 via VGA input. The same resolution fed from a PC via HDMI, however, produced a slightly underscanned image.

The included remote control has a flat, rectangular face with a tapered midsection on the back that provides an effective grip. Its buttons lack a backlight or glow-in-the-dark functionality, but ample spacing and a variety of sizes and shapes gave good tactile feedback. The remote's performance from various angles and at distances out to 15 feet was responsive and flawless too. I found the L32W461's menu options were simple to navigate and included advanced picture-control features such as adjustable video-noise reduction, color-temperature presets, and a backlight-level adjustment. The L32W461 defaults to a warm color-temperature preset, and I thought this setting produced the most natural-looking skin tones.

Effective video processing can make viewing standard-definition video on an HDTV look pretty good. I evaluated the deinterlacing and scaling abilities of the L32W461 using a Denon DVD-3910 disc player configured to output a 480i resolution signal via component video. Starting with a few of my favorite DVD videos, I noticed that the L32W461's video-noise reduction was quite effective at its default low preset, and its medium setting eliminated obvious signs of noise without softening image detail. Detection of 24-frame-per-second material (film and digital cinema) was very fast and effectively prevented flicker and moiré artifacts from tainting the picture.

The L32W461's deinterlacing functions seemed solid, as well, with no obvious or distracting jagged-edge artifacts cropping up. Unfortunately, all the videos I played looked too darkor rather, the darkest portions of the picture appeared too dark, muddying fine shadowy details. Increasing the TV's brightness level returned the missing dark details, but made colors appear less saturated and gave the overall picture a slightly washed-out look.

HD video viewing on the L32W461 highlighted the same dark detail issue encountered with standard-definition video. I also saw some unfortunate posterization (banding) in fine gradients, but this was most apparent only when sitting fairly close to the screen, as someone might do with a 32-inch display. Overscan with HD video was an acceptable 2 percent (no overscan is ideal). The new HD HQV Benchmark test from Silicon Optix humbles most TVs that can run this 1080i test, but the L32W461 scored a few points by doing well on the test's video-noise reduction and jagged-edge suppression tests. As with other inexpensive HDTVs I've run this test on, such as the 46-inch WinBook 46D1, the L32W461 failed to deinterlace a 1080i video signal properly, which indicates half-resolution processingwhen possible, stick with the 720p HD input.

The L32W461's ANSI contrast ratio, measured by my new Konica Minolta CS200 chroma meter, was an impressive 1,013:1 (default picture settings). Of course, the TV's default picture settings caused a loss of dark detail, and raising black levels (brightness) to compensate sent the contrast ratio plummeting to 508:1. Even more telling was watching the TV's dark measurements (backlight set to maximum) climb from a respectable 0.44 Cd/m2 to an overly bright 1.03 Cd/m2an unacceptably high black level for a flat-panel HDTV when viewed in anything but a very well-lit room.

The primary and secondary color accuracy (measured at peak luminance) was quite good, with green showing the most errorshifted toward the blue end of the spectrum to make the grass of a sporting field pop. The L32W461's color quality was better than other low-cost 32-inch LCDs, such as the Vizio L32 and Westinghouse LTV-32w3, but the pricier Sharp LC-32D40U outperformed them all.

As for power consumption, the L32W461's measurements placed its monthly operating cost at $4.73based on 8 hours of daily operation at $0.13 kWh. This estimate drops to a miserly $2.25 when the TV's backlight is adjusted down to its lower setting, which is more appropriate for viewing at night or in a dimly lit room. LCD HDTVs that provide a backlight control can offer superb power efficiency when dialed down low.

All in all, the AOC Envision L32W461 offers generally good color quality, but its sacrifice of darker picture details will cause many owners to crank up the brightness. Doing so, however, adversely affects image contrast and causes colors to appear less saturated. It's possible that the TV's service menu provides the adjustments needed to correct this detail issue without increasing brightness, but a TV at this price doesn't justify hiring a calibration professional to get it to appear "just right." I look forward to seeing AOC's next 32-inch HDTV, and I hope it addresses these image-quality concerns while adding a few more HDMI inputs. Until then, I suggest people spend a little more and get a Sharp or Sony for their superior color quality, a better selection of A/V connections, and none of the black-level blues.

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